


no grave can hold my body down

by imalwaysstraight



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Anal Sex, Angst and Fluff and Smut, Angst with a Happy Ending, Canon Compliant, Coherent Fic: my actual kink, Crying After Sex, Dom/sub, Light Bondage, Love Confessions, M/M, Monmouth Manufacturing, Porn With Plot, Post-Canon, Post-Coital Cuddling, Riding, Sex, Sex Toys, Wet Dream, i also promise it's coherent, it goes from kink to angst real fast but it has a happy ending i promise, pynch - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-05
Updated: 2017-08-05
Packaged: 2018-12-11 09:29:45
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,102
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11711583
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/imalwaysstraight/pseuds/imalwaysstraight
Summary: “Would you let me do that?” asked Adam.“What?”“What I did in the dream.”Ronan gulped. “Anything you want, Parrish,” he said.“Don’t make promises you can’t keep.”“Oh, I--” Ronan choked on the rest of the words. 'I know I could keep that one,' he almost replied. 'Anything you want from me, take it.'





	no grave can hold my body down

**Author's Note:**

> Title is from Hozier's Work Song.

“Jesus _fuck_ , Lynch.” Adam’s voice was serious and rough. It reminded Ronan of the one he’d used when Ronan told him he’d dreamed Cabeswater, or Matthew, or the night horrors. Raw and uncontrolled.

Adam’s firm grasp on his self-control rarely slipped, and even then only moments at a time: when he was caught by surprise, when he was trying to talk and drive simultaneously, right before he came. Ronan still hated himself for how much he adored this vulnerable version of Adam, even a whole two months into their relationship. Vulnerability was directly contrary to the nature of being Adam Parrish, and so it cut into Ronan’s own self-control like a punch to the gut.

“Hey!” Ronan began jokingly, turning around. “There will be no blaspheming in my--”

He choked on his words when he saw what nightstand drawer Adam was staring into, eyes wide and jaw dropped. He did not move, did not so much as glance up at the sound of the air leaving Ronan’s lungs, and Ronan felt like he might pass out.

A long moment went by. Ronan’s cheeks were burning. Adam did not say a word.

“Adam?”

He flinched at the sound of his own name, like he’d forgotten Ronan was there, but he still didn’t look up. His voice was even huskier when he spoke. “Did these come from your dreams?”

Oh, good god, this was it. Two years of walking through hell and back and this was what killed Ronan. Adam Parrish opening _that drawer_. Just when he’d thought he was safest, crashing at Monmouth after a long day of slogging fruitlessly up and down the ley line. He’d been rushing as he dug through the pile of mostly-clean laundry in his closet to find a spare pair of sweatpants for Adam to borrow, ready to be in bed and cuddling.

And now Ronan was going to die. He’d wondered so often how it would happen, but he’d never predicted that this was how the whole shitshow of his life was going to end.

Of _all_ the drawers Adam could’ve chosen to open.

“Yeah,” Ronan answered.

Adam’s eyes were still trained on the drawer. “All of them?”

Ronan gulped. “Yeah.”

“Even the--my shirt?”

“Yes.” There were suddenly a plethora of words struggling to claw their way out of his throat, where before he’d been bereft. Ronan had learned slowly that this was how being Ronan worked: extremes were what he did best. All or nothing.

This was one of the things Adam liked about him, he’d told him after they’d had sex for the first time above St. Agnes a few weeks ago. Ronan didn’t fuck around, he committed. “Well,” Adam had corrected (always correct, and if not, then in the process of correcting--good God, Ronan loved him), “You do fuck around. Even then, though, you’re committed to fucking around, not half-assed about it.” He had sighed into the darkness, waiting for Ronan to interrupt from beside him, before he continued. “Not that you can’t be nuanced. But you’re careful with it.”

Ronan could not remember anyone ever calling him careful before.

The words that made it to his lips before the rest now were a choked, “I’m sorry.”

Adam looked up at him then, eyes dark and sharp. Ronan could tell that he was trying valiantly to balance his voice when he said, “You could’ve just asked for the real thing.”

Jesus Christ, Jesus fuck, Jesus Mary and Joseph, Adam _was_ mad. Ronan searched the shelves in his head for the catalogue of all potential exits from his room, window options included.

He tried to respond to the jab how people who hadn’t spent the last minute dying a long, painful death-by-shame did. “Ha.”

And then, because fucking Christ, Adam just wouldn’t stop: “Is there anything else in this drawer that came out of the same dream?”

“What?”

“Did anything else in this drawer come out of the same dream as my shirt?”

Ronan couldn’t look at him anymore, and his eyes flew to a spot on the ground about halfway between them. What a fascinating patch of carpet.

“Ronan?”

“The blue one.” Ronan tried to remember if he had more than one blue vibrator. Sometimes it was hard to keep track: the drawer was not small. He watched Adam lean over to see which toy that was.

“What did I do with it in the dream?”

Ronan shuddered despite himself. The month-old memory still felt fresh, drifting in his head independent of any real time, as dreams do. “You fucked me.”

Adam stiffened. “And?”

“Do you really want to know?”

Adam gave him a look. Funny how he managed to look plain annoyed even while he must have been acutely aware that he was pushing Ronan into a particularly in-depth version of a conversation that he had already hoped to never have.

Ronan found it kinda hot, in the way that he found everything Adam Parrish did kinda hot.

He steeled himself. “It vibrates, so it... Yeah. You had--” He let out an exhale. “You fucked me in your lap. It was on your bed at St. Agnes, and you were sitting against the wall, and I was sitting in your lap facing you while you fucked me with it, and--fuck.”

“Shit,” said Adam.

“I’m so sorry,” Ronan said. “I shouldn’t have kept--I shouldn’t’ve fucking dreamed it in the first place, and--”

“No, fuck, Ronan. Come here,” and Adam had pulled him into a kiss.

“What are you--” Ronan began when Adam stopped to breathe.

“That’s really fucking--shit, sorry,” he apologized as he pushed Ronan backwards into his bed a little too roughly. In a quiet voice, as though he didn’t want to embarrass either of them even after that line of questioning had gone down, he explained, “I just--that’s hot.”

“Oh,” said Ronan. "Okay." He sat down and scooted back towards the wall, and Adam started to climb over to the space next to him, before pausing. 

“Would you let me do that?” asked Adam.

“What?”

“What I did in the dream.”

Ronan gulped. “Anything you want, Parrish,” he said.

“Don’t make promises you can’t keep.”

“Oh, I--” Ronan choked on the rest of the words. _I know I could keep that one_ , he almost replied. _Anything you want from me, take it._ It was an unsubtle way to say ‘I love you,’ and though Ronan so badly wanted to say that, so often found it at the tip of his tongue, the sliver of his brain with good judgement advised that he needed at least 8 hours of sleep and a long bath to emotionally prepare himself before he busted out with it.

Adam gave him a long, knowing look, and then settled down next to him. “How did it start?” Ronan ducked down to kiss at his collarbone. “Lynch?”

Ronan murmured into his neck, “You tied me up.”

* * *

  


Adam could feel blood rush directly south as he stuttered out a response. “Oh.”

“Yeah,” said Ronan into his collarbone. “Hands. Behind my back.”

“With?”

“My Aglionby tie.”

“Fuck.”

“And you gagged me with yours.”

“ _Fuck,_ ” and Adam was kissing Ronan again, and was...? Yeah, Ronan was reaching for himself, palming his own dick through his jeans. Holy shit. 

Adam extricated himself from Ronan to point out the obvious logistical issues. “Well, we have your tie, but I didn’t come in uniform.”

Ronan went back to kissing Adam’s neck. It was his favorite diversionary tactic, and one Adam couldn’t really complain about. “Check the drawer.”

Adam moved away from Ronan despite himself to rifle through it. It was not a near-empty drawer: there were quite a few sex toys, a carbon copy of a shirt Adam usually wore under his coveralls at the garage, something metallic Adam didn’t recognize, a wooden paddle ( _Jesus shit, they'd have to talk about that one sometime_ ), and at the bottom four or five Aglionby ties.

Not just any Aglionby ties, he realized as he pulled one out. All gently used, carefully handled, with the letters “AP” drawn neatly in Sharpie on the label.

They were copies of his. Seeing them anywhere else, Adam would’ve thought they were the real thing. He turned the one he had over in his hands, examining faint but unmistakable bite marks pressed into the silk.

Ronan had wet dreams about Adam. Several wet dreams. And not just wet dreams, he fantasized about Adam doing _this._  Adam’s brain scanned back through every memory he had of wearing uniform in front of Ronan and still didn’t know how to process that information.

“You dream about me tying you up often?”

Ronan blushed. Adam couldn’t believe that was the question that finally did it. “Once or twice.”

“Is it good for you when I do it?”

“Everything you do is good for me.”

Adam sighed. He knew Ronan would throw a world’s worth of affection at him if he didn’t push back, and so something in him compelled him to rebuff, despite the way his gut flipped every time Ronan gave him those eyes. He hated himself for it. _Jesus, Lynch, stop saying bullshit like that,_ he almost replied, and then caught himself at the last second and gave him a stern look instead.

He was in love with Ronan and couldn’t stop trying to hurt him, and he almost wanted to cry. Fuck, why did he have to be so cold? Was he really that proud? He’d been right all those times a voice in his head had crowed that Parrishes weren’t built for tenderness.

For once tonight, Ronan looked back at him unflinchingly, his eyes dark and soft and unguarded. Adam almost couldn’t bear the warmth of it. “I don’t lie.”

Adam picked up a tie. _Now or never,_ he said inside his head, and then laughed at himself for it. What an un-Adam thing to say, Ronan might point out. What an un-Adam thing to have someone know him well enough to point out shit like that. “Stand up.”

Ronan blinked at him, and then swallowed and stood with his back to Adam.

“Shirt off.” Adam scooted to sit right behind Ronan and waited for him to tug his shirt off, but Ronan didn’t move. “Ronan?”

“You know I mean it, right?” Ronan’s voice trembled as he slowly removed his tank top, and suddenly Adam was face to face with a Celtic emblem at the center of Ronan’s tattoo. “I--I would--” Ronan started, and then stopped suddenly. It made Adam feel a bit better. Both of them were relatively new to this whole communication thing.

Adam leaned forward and kissed the emblem in response, feeling the muscles of Ronan’s back tense in surprise and then relax against his lips and tongue. It was an “I love you, too” in the only way he could say it right now without emotionally bleeding out.

He tried to remember what he was doing. What he wanted to be doing. What his dick wanted him to be doing. “Give me your hands.”

“God, Adam,” Ronan breathed, stretching his arms back towards Adam. Carefully, Adam pressed his wrists together, and began to lace the tie he was holding between and around his arms before tying it.

“Does that feel okay?” Ronan nodded, a quick jerk. Adam wanted words. “Ronan?”

“Yes. Fuck yes.”

He stood and moved around to the front of Ronan’s jeans and unbuttoned them, tugging them some of the way off. He had to hold Ronan steady as he pulled them off over his feet. From there, it was easy for Adam to drop to his knees. Just a few inches.

Ronan swore loudly at the sight.

“Shh,” hushed Adam, pulling down Ronan’s boxers. “Quiet.”

He licked a stripe up the underside of Ronan’s dick, and earned himself another deep, colorful curse as Ronan shoved his hips towards his face unsteadily. “Aha,” he said as it dawned on him. “This is what the gag is for.”

“Adam,” Ronan said as Adam moved towards the drawer and grabbed another tie. “Adam, let me suck you off, _please._ I want to suck you so bad.”

“Are you in charge?” Adam asked.  

Ronan didn’t respond for a beat, and then asked, “You’re doing this because you like it, right?”

“What?”

“You’re not just doing this for me, right? Like--” He tensed visibly, with his whole body: committed as usual. “I want you to get off, too.”

“Trust me,” Adam said, pulling himself in close to Ronan, hands on his hips. “This is so fucking hot.”

“Okay.”

“You’re so damn hot with your hands tied,” he murmured into Ronan’s shoulder, enjoying the heat where his flushed, tan skin met black ink. Ronan’s hips thrust forward fruitlessly, and he whined.

“You asshole, get on with it.”

“And you’ll be hotter gagged.”

Ronan opened his mouth and waited by way of response, and Adam threaded the tie around his head and knotted it blindly, hoping it held. “Is that good?”

Ronan groaned, the thick fabric between his teeth preventing him from dealing in real words. Adam dropped back to his knees, and took Ronan in his mouth.

It didn’t take much of Adam on his knees for Ronan to almost fall apart. Adam could tell when he was close by how his knees went weak, and he pulled off after Ronan nearly collapsed, unbalanced without his arms to steady him.

Ronan moaned, clearly trying to say something. Panic flashed through Adam.

“Do you want me to untie you?” Ronan shook his head no emphatically. Adam stood and leaned against him, taking quiet delight in the feeling of Ronan hard and wet against his hip. “Something else you want?”

Ronan moaned around his gag again, this time something closer to two words. “Sorry?” Adam asked, trying not to smile, and Ronan gave him a glare with no edge to it. He tried again, and it sounded near enough to ‘fuck me’ for Adam to stop teasing.

“With the toy?” It was a satisfying set of words on his tongue. Ronan nodded quickly, and then moaned something akin to ‘please.’ “Sit back,” instructed Adam, and then helped maneuver Ronan until he was on his knees on the bed with his head on his pillow. “Is there lube in the drawer?” Ronan nodded again, and Adam reached over to grab it.

It was more liquid than the lube they’d used the first few times they’d done this, the one Adam had at his place, and it ran down his hand messily. Tentatively, he pressed the tip of his index finger to Ronan’s entrance and circled around before dipping in just a bit. Ronan groaned, his hands grabbing at thin air in their ties.

“Don’t come before you’re allowed,” Adam said, and Ronan whined, not unhappily.

Adam worked his first finger in slowly, and then his second, enjoying the feeling of knowing how to do this, until Ronan had loosened around him and was clenching and unclenching and making minorly unhinged noises. The moaning pitched upward into keening when Adam brushed against his prostate, and from there it was easy to take Ronan closer to the edge.

He was so hot like this, moaning into his pillow, senseless to everything except Adam’s hands on him. It was straight out of one of the wet dreams Adam had always felt so guilty about having.

He pulled his fingers out when Ronan kicked him once gently in the side, and then again, not so gently. “You want the toy now?” Ronan rolled over onto his back and shivered, and Adam did too, helping him sit up against the wall. A thrill went through him at Ronan’s pleasured bonelessness: his doing. He stood up and stripped out of his jeans and boxers to alleviate the pressure on his cock, removed his shirt for good measure, and climbed back onto the bed to sit against the wall next to Ronan, holding the lube and the toy. He started to rub the toy down with lube as Ronan watched him.

“This is big,” he noted. It wasn’t huge, just over the size of his own cock, but still. It was a lot in his hand. Ronan made a noise that he took to be agreement. Quieter, he asked, “Does it fill you up when you fuck yourself?”

In response, Ronan shuddered, and pushed himself forward haphazardly. Adam groaned when he swung a leg over Adam’s lap, and he felt lube drip from Ronan’s ass onto his knee.

“Fuck,” he breathed. “Come here.” He grabbed Ronan by his thighs and pulled him forward into his lap so their cocks were flush. Ronan rutted into him. “I want to kiss you,” Adam let slip before he could help himself.

Ronan blinked back at him with glassy eyes, and ducked his head forward under Adam’s chin so Adam could unknot the gag, watching in a daze as Ronan let it slip out of his mouth, spit-soaked and chewed. He pressed his lips to Ronan’s forehead, and then again to Ronan’s cheek as Ronan opened and closed his jaw, easing what must have been stiff muscles.

“Adam,” said Ronan, and it sounded like the start of a sentence. “Adam,” he tried again, and their mouths fell together. Adam attempted to be gentle and slow.

“Is this good for you so far?”

“‘Course,” said Ronan. “You have a dirtier mouth than your dream self.”

“Do you still want the toy?”

“Fuck, Adam, just you, please.” Adam inhaled quickly. God, they’d done this a few times before, but never with Ronan on top of him like this.

He realized he’d been staring at Ronan for longer than was explainable. He had to say something, fast.

“Do you want me to gag you again?”

Ronan laughed breathlessly. “What a romantic. Aren’t you in charge?” he parroted back to Adam. It would have been a convincing imitation if not for the shake in his voice.

Adam gave him a look. “For God’s sake, do you care either way?”

Ronan shook his head and pressed himself back down against Adam’s legs, hot and wet and wanting. “Just fuck me, come _on_.”

“I want to hear you,” said Adam, shivering when Ronan shivered. He put his hand to Ronan’s hip to steady himself.

“Fuck, do it then, come on.”

“Do what?”

“Please, Adam, c’mon, please. I want it so fucking bad, please, _Adam._ ”

“Okay,” said Adam. “Okay.” He leaned over to the drawer to grab a condom, trying not to topple Ronan off his lap. He ripped open the package haphazardly, tense and rushed with anticipation, and managed to poke a hole in it before it even made it close to his cock, and he had to grab another one. He added lube on top of it before looking up at Ronan, who was staring at him with such open want.

Ronan lifted his hips.

Adam had to hold his cock in place while Ronan lined up and began to sink down onto it, his lower lip between his teeth. His mouth fell open once the head was inside of him, and he gasped as he slowly bottomed out.

“Ronan,” Adam gasped. He could feel Ronan trying to grab onto something, with his hands straining against their ties. It drove him just slightly insane. “Fuck. You good?”

Ronan didn’t reply, just began to raise himself up and thrust back down, tightening around Adam as he did so. Ronan under him on the mattress had been one thing, but watching Ronan’s concentration as he fucked himself on Adam’s cock was a whole different monster.

Ronan began to establish a rhythm, and eventually--despite himself--Adam thrust his hips upward to meet it. Ronan collapsed forward onto him with what would’ve been called a shriek if it were from anyone else.  

“You okay?”

“You could say that,” Ronan replied weakly, then swore vehemently. “Oh, fucking fuck, _Adam._ ” He swallowed thickly, his hips lifting and falling in a faster, harder way, small uncontrollable noises coming from the back of his throat, his adam’s apple moving against Adam’s shoulder.

He was so real sometimes that Adam wanted to set something on fire.

“Too much?”

Ronan opened his mouth to say something, but ended up moaning more curses into the corner between Adam’s neck and shoulder. Adam pressed his hips up to meet Ronan’s again a few more times, this time thrusting harder, and he shook against him, close to losing his last shreds of control.

Adam could imagine how having his hands tied made everything worse in a good way.

“Can I--can you do something for me?” Ronan moaned loudly in response. “Can you sit back so I can watch you cum?” He shook harder--let out a murmured ‘ _Holy fuck, Adam_ ’--and nodded a little before sitting up.

He almost fell over sideways, and Adam had to catch him. At this angle he missed the warmth of Ronan’s chest pressed into his, but in some ways it was more heady, watching Ronan fuck himself on Adam so hard. Hearing the slap of Ronan's ass hitting his skin each time he thrust down. And his face, oh god. When Ronan was close, his eyes slid shut, and his mouth opened and closed around moans that Adam thought were meant to be his name.

He wrapped a hand around Ronan’s neck, stabilizing Ronan from the back as best he could, and slid his other hand between them so he could jerk Ronan off.

Adam always forgot how beautiful and vulnerable Ronan looked in these last few moments--shuddering and twitching and arching, bucking between Adam’s dick and his hand, slackjawed and moaning, then gasping in the air necessary to moan some more--but holy shit, when he came.

There were very few things Adam could not imagine having taken from him, and this moment made that list. It was intense, and so terribly Ronan.

Fuck, he was in love.

The way air caught in his throat, the way his eyes fluttered just slightly, the way every muscle in his body spasmed, the way he sobbed hoarsely once he was just over the edge, and, in this case in particular, the way he fell forward onto Adam and came on his stomach. How Adam could feel his whole body shake, rhythmic, undone with pleasure.

Once the shaking turned back into restless twitching, Adam carefully pulled out, wiping his hand on Ronan’s discarded shirt without thinking. He undid the tie holding Ronan’s hands, and they fell slack to rest against Adam’s hips.

He could feel Ronan relax when he came back to himself, and hum in quiet contentment as he pressed small kisses to Adam’s jaw and neck. “You’re amazing, you know that?” he asked Ronan.

“Yep,” said Ronan. “That’s what they tell me.” He kissed Adam, and then slid the condom off of him. Adam arched into his touch. “Do you want me to blow you?”

“Fuck,” Adam sighed. “I think you barely have to touch me.”

“This was the best part of the dream,” Ronan murmured into his jaw near his good ear, wrapping his hand around him, the motion smooth with practice. “I sucked you off and you came on my face.”

“What?” It wasn’t really a question, just all Adam could manage to choke out after that.

“Yeah. You made me beg you for it. I thought about it while I jacked off for like a month afterward.” He hooked his free arm around Adam’s neck and held him closer, tighter as his hand moved faster on Adam’s dick. “C’mon, Adam. Cum for me, please, I want it so bad.”

And what was Adam’s self control in the face of Ronan pleading? In the face of Ronan, at all? Ronan made him feel like he’d lost the hard-won reins to his own life.

He came hard, gasping in Ronan’s arms.

 

* * *

 

Just when Ronan thought he had things figured out, they became more complicated. This was almost always how life worked, and Ronan knew it, but it did not do much to help his surprise as he felt the heat of tears rolling down his back less than a minute after Adam came. “Adam?”

Adam’s chest rose and fell against his, and another tear hit Ronan’s back. This was the second time he’d ever seen Adam cry. He still regretted not holding him the first time, in his bed at St. Agnes the night Gansey died and was reborn, instead just laying by his side in bed as Adam shook and sobbed without letting out a sound.

He’d thought he didn’t want him to know. He realized now that of course Adam cried silently by habit.

“Adam.” It was not a question this time.

Adam answered anyway. “I don’t know what’s, I just--” He breathed out, ragged, a few more tears escaping onto Ronan’s tattoo.

“Shh,” Ronan hushed him, rubbing a hand up and down his back, like his mother used to do. “Shh, ‘s okay.”

“I’m in love with you,” said Adam, suddenly, like he was coughing it up. The tightness in Ronan’s throat thickened. Well, fuck, this was, well-- “And sometimes it makes me want to light myself on fire,” he continued.

“Okay,” Ronan breathed, more for himself than Adam.

“I’m so sorry,” said Adam, and oh, if nothing else had been able to break Ronan’s heart, this conversation was going to do him in. “How do I--” he broke off tightly, letting more tears stream down over Ronan’s shoulder blade. “You deserve someone who doesn’t--who doesn’t fucking cry after sex. I wasn’t made for this, for things this... I don’t know.” Adam said it like he meant a million different things: fragile, beautiful, warm, real.

Ronan took a long breath in and out as Adam swallowed, then continued. “I don’t know how to handle how I feel about you and that makes me hate myself, and then I hate myself more for the fact that I push away from you, because that’s just what I’ve been made to do, and you deserve someone who knows how to love you, and who isn't cruel, and everything is out of my control and--”

“Shh,” said Ronan, rubbing Adam’s back as he choked on his words. “Let me--here,” he said, wiping their stomachs off with tissues. “Put your boxers back on and get under the covers.” Fuck, he was bad at this. He didn’t know how to phrase things so they were gentle enough, how to cushion his feelings. He just knew that once he himself started crying, trying to stop never really helped.

“Okay,” said Adam, miserably, and Ronan had to help him under the blanket after he pulled his own boxers back on. He climbed under after, and wrapped his arms around him, pulling Adam’s head onto his chest. Stroking his thumb over the back of Adam’s head, he held him close as Adam started to cry.

This time, Adam did not try to stop and explain.

“Funny story, Parrish,” said Ronan once Adam had slowed to a sniffle a few minutes later. He stared at the lone glow in the dark star Matthew had plastered to his ceiling when he’d first moved into Monmouth, and wondered what advice Matthew would give him right now. Probably something he wasn’t brave enough to do. He steeled himself and tried to do it anyway.

“Do you think I ever once, in the epic history of this stupid crush I’ve had on you, thought to myself, ‘Wow, if I end up in a relationship with this asshole, everything will be smooth sailing and both of our long lists of intimacy-related issues will magically vanish’? Because,” Ronan continued to the star, “One, I didn’t ever think that would happen, and two, I wouldn’t trade what we have for anything like that.”

“Well,” said Adam, “That’s nice that you--”

“Wait, no, Adam--” Ronan caught himself at that. How could he phrase this right? He scrunched his eyes shut and tried to just spill all of it at once. “Adam. I’m not trying to fix anything, okay? I know I can’t change how you’re feeling, really, I just--I don’t want you to ever feel like you need to be fixed, or you’re letting me down, because I’m in love with a boy who gets angry sometimes and gets frustrated sometimes and cries after sex sometimes and you never need to change because you think I deserve a different version of you. I signed up for this.”

There was a long silence. Ronan thought about all the alternate versions of the universe where he had none of this: where Gansey had died, where Matthew had been unmade, where Adam had gotten hit too hard one night after work and had not made it to Aglionby the next morning. Where his mother and father had lived.

Perhaps this one he was living in was not the absolute best-case-scenario universe, but it was still one he was undeniably lucky to have.

“I meant it,” said Adam finally, weakly. This time it was less like something he was trying to dislodge from his throat. “I’m in love with you. Even if I’m shitty at showing it.”

“Oh, you show it, Parrish,” Ronan replied. “You’re nowhere near as subtle as you seem to think.”

“Shut up, you dick.” Adam punched him lightly in the arm. “Could I sleep here tonight?”

“‘Course. Dinner first, though.” Ronan yawned. “I’m starving.”

“Okay,” said Adam. He sat up slowly, moving off of Ronan so both of them could get out of bed. “I never said,” he started as he reached for his shirt. “I wouldn’t imagine this any other way, either.”

“Love you too, you sap,” said Ronan, pulling on pants.

He could practically hear Adam roll his eyes. “I also never said, you never found me any damn pants.”

“Oh,” said Ronan. “Yeah, I should do that, hmm?”

“I think the others would appreciate it.”

Ronan went back to searching through his clothes. _I wouldn’t imagine this any other way_ , Adam’s voice echoed in his head. He had always been so careful about the difference between easily-mixed words, so precise that he’d choose _wouldn’t_ over _couldn’t_.

Ronan couldn’t help but smile. His boyfriend was strange and wonderful and difficult. He himself was, as far as he could gather, strange and wonderful and difficult. Neither of them ever said exactly what they meant, but they understood. They were going to be alright, at the end of the day.

He couldn’t want it any other way.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading!! Kudos and comments literally make my day, so please let me know what you liked and what you didn't!


End file.
